


You'll Still Be My Star

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Prompt Fills [69]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28460007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: The Doctor had been minding her own business in the TARDIS when she somehow finds herself in Dallas, circa November 1963. And yet somehow, the impending assassination of JFK isn't the most interesting thing about this development - instead, the team of superheroes that she's ended up in the midst of.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan
Series: Prompt Fills [69]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/585397
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	You'll Still Be My Star

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion on [this.](https://universe-on-her-shoulders.tumblr.com/post/626601720272846848/drabble-prompt-13-meeting-a-hargreeves-child-of)

There had been the TARDIS, warm and safe and full of laughter.

There had been Ryan and Yaz and Graham, and takeaway Chinese food that hadn’t quite been up to par with the banquet she’d had in eighteenth-century China, and the reassuring soft hum of the console as it piloted them through the vortex aimlessly.

There had been a sudden, electro-static tingling that had begun in the Doctor’s fingertips and spread through her body, radiating down to her fingertips, and then there had been a sharp jolt, an unfamiliar patch of sky, and a short fall, followed by a welcome loss of consciousness as she landed on something distinctly solid and metallic with a _thud_.

Now, however, as she clawed her way back to awareness, she was becoming increasingly aware of an odd, fuzzy sound surrounding her, like the static on old television sets, as well as the low hum of several voices. There was also, more pressingly, the fact that her hands were tied behind her with some _particularly_ scratchy pieces of rope, and-

“Before you think about moving,” a knife was pressed against her throat, and she held her breath, sensing the sharpness of the blade and knowing that this was not a time to take risks or attempt a witty comeback, tempting though both may be. “I have a knife.“

“I think she can probably tell that, Diego,” another, much gruffer, voice chipped in. “Given that you’re practically slitting her throat with it. She fell out of the goddamn sky, cut her some slack. She’s probably too concussed to do much other than throw up, so I’d also suggest moving out of range.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the first voice – Diego? – said impatiently, pressing the knife more insistently against her jugular. “She’s fine. We’re fine. We’re just having a little chat.”

“She’s not conscious,” a third, much more singsong, voice added in a tone that was almost dreamlike in its level of casualness. “That’s not a chat, that’s a monologue. Although, then again, Diego, that’s what most conversations with you are like, isn’t it? Just the great and mighty Number Two, and god forbid anyone else try to get a word in edgeways.”

“Shut up, Klaus,” Diego muttered, and the Doctor cracked one eye open experimentally, followed by the other, grimacing as they focused slowly on a dusty, cluttered lounge full of chunky furniture of a generally brown hue. Earth, then; by the colour palette… late twentieth century, at a guess. An enormous, bulky television in one corner was throwing out static, which explained the noise, and allowed her to pinpoint the decade, if nothing else. The 1960s; high points, low points. Middling points, like Sunday afternoons and Wednesdays. If she’d been able to lick a finger and hold it up, she might have been able to guess the year, and maybe even the month, but the knots around her wrist were tied expertly and tightly, rendering her entirely immobile. “See? She’s awake. Hello, lady who fell from the sky. What-”

“Are you likely to throw up?” Klaus interjected with sympathy, and her eyes widened as she took in his luridly coloured clothes and sunglasses, which coupled with his long hair and beard gave him a distinctly hippy-ish vibe. She’d been a hippy once – more than once, actually, but it had all blurred together in her memory. It was a fondly recalled time, and she smiled as the sight of him evoked memories of Woodstock. “Because my dear brother is in the splash zone, and he will not take kindly to being vomited on. You think he’d be used to it by now, but-”

“Klaus, all of your antics are what gave me such an aversion to being thrown up on.”

“Well, maybe you should have tried to understand my tortured soul rather than being a judgypants. How about that, for an idea? Now, let the lady speak. Miss? Are you feeling sick? Dizzy? Unwell? Do you need anything? Some water? Painkillers? A large vodka?”

The Doctor thought about speaking, then realised that doing so would press her neck into the knife at her throat; shaking her head would similarly and effectively serve as an unzipping of her own skin. As she was pondering this problem, the second speaker moved into her field of vision; he was hugely muscly in the upper body, but any menace or sense of threat he might have held was countered by the concerned look in his eyes as he took hold of Diego by the back of his shirt and pulled him bodily backwards by several feet, before depositing him on the floor. Literally; he dropped Diego onto the ugly carpet, ignoring his brother’s vociferous cursing.

“Let the poor woman speak without spilling her blood, Diego,” he muttered, before turning his attention back to her and offering her an apologetic smile that served to reassure her further. “I’m sorry about my brother, ma’am. How are you feeling?”

“Urm,” the Doctor blinked hard, wriggling her shoulders carefully and trying to regain some of the sensation in her arms. “Not keen on the ropes.”

“Oh,” Klaus pressed a hand to his heart with a fondly nostalgic expression. “She’s _British._ ”

“I told you that tying her up was rude, Diego,” the muscular brother said with exasperation, ignoring Klaus’s comment. “I’ll-”

“Don’t even think about untying her,” Diego growled, scrambling back upright and starting towards her, only to find his brother’s enormous hand descending on his shoulder warningly. “What if she’s from the Commission? What if she’s been sent after Five?”

“Does she look like the sort of person who works at the Commission?” Klaus asked, rolling his eyes, gesturing the Doctor with one hand. “For crying out loud, she’s wearing banana-yellow suspenders.”

“What’s wrong with my braces?” the Doctor demanded to know. She had no idea what commission they could be referring to; something about it sounded sinister and mysterious, and she hated not knowing. “They keep my trousers up, thanks very much.”

“There’s nothing _wrong_ with them,” Klaus raised his eyebrows. “They’re just sort of incredibly not like the kind of thing that the people trying to kill us would wear.”

“She’s got blonde hair,” Diego chipped in, his tone growing increasingly desperate. The Doctor eyed him with distaste; she’d never been fond of people who were keen to kill her, regardless of how sound – or unsound – their reasoning might be. “What if she’s a spy for the Swedes?”

“I’m definitely not Swedish,” the Doctor said at once, then added for posterity: “Nor am I the root vegetable.”

“The what?”

“She’s British,” the second, still-unnamed speaker noted. “She probably means something-”

“Rutabaga,” the Doctor supplied helpfully, fishing the word out of some unknown part of her subconscious. “I mean a rutabaga. _Great_ word, and much less confusing than the British terminology. I once had a very befuddling mix-up about Swedes in a supermarket. It turns out that they weren’t actually selling the people for 49 pence each, which was a relief all round. Although there was-”

“Lady,” Diego said, sinking down on a seat opposite her and beginning to idly play with a knife, holding it by the handle, then throwing it a little way into the air and catching it by the point. He repeated the motion time and time again; it would have been hypnotising were it not so overtly, casually menacing. “Regardless of your past history with rutabaga and whatever the hell a pence is, we need to know whether you’re working for the Commission.”

“Going to need you to be more specific, chaps,” the Doctor shrugged. “Commission of what? What am I commissioning?”

“You know,” Diego shot her a darkly significant look that failed to impede her curiosity, which was burning all the more brightly with each veiled mention of this mysterious Commission. Something about it seemed to need a capital C. “Don’t play games with us.”

“I’m not, in fact, a mind reader,” the Doctor frowned, then corrected herself: “I mean… I am, but that seems rude, frankly, and I’d much rather you-”

The knife Diego had been toying with was launched through the air towards her without warning, embedding itself in the wall just behind her head.

“The Commission!” Diego snapped, lurching to his feet and starting towards her again. “Don’t play games with us-”

“Diego!” the muscled man pushed Diego backwards for the second time, and the Doctor felt a surge of gratitude towards him for his self-assigned role as her protector. Not that she _needed_ protecting, per se, but Diego seemed intent on causing trouble, and it did get exhausting being the one to constantly break up other people’s fights and play peacekeeper. “Calm down! She doesn’t know what you’re-”

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Doctor told them politely, as Diego tried to approach her again and was again rebuffed, swearing loudly as his brother stepped in front of him. “What Commission?”

“Come on, that’s exactly the kind of shit someone from the Commission would say!” Diego protested, flailing ineffectually against the taller, stronger man. “Luther-”

“That’s also the kind of thing that someone who had no idea what the Commission was would say, so think about that.”

Luther gave his brother a final shove and Diego sank onto a nearby chair sulkily, taking another knife from the webbing strapped across his torso and beginning the same repetitive throwing and catching action as before.

“I apologise yet again for my brother,” Luther began, in what seemed to be a well-practiced speech. “He’s a little paranoid.”

“Oh, what, so you’re saying I should be back in the nuthouse?” Diego snapped, immediately on the defensive. “Is that it? Oh, real nice, bro. Real good of you-”

“Diego, I really think you need to calm down,” Klaus interjected coolly. “You’re being unusually touchy with our dear lady friend; is it the proximity of someone female you’re not related to? I know you’re uncommonly sad about being given the run-around by your girlfriend-”

“She was _not_ my girlfriend.”

“-but there’s no need to be such a beacon of toxic masculinity. It’s really negatively impacting on the energy of the room.”

“I hate it when you talk cult bullshit at me.”

“It’s not a cult, it’s an alternative spiritual community.”

“It’s a goddamn cult.”

Luther let out a long breath, gritting his teeth as he did so. Diego and Klaus eyed each other up with overt hostility, squaring up to each other from across the room in a manner that the Doctor was all too familiar with. Klaus narrowed his eyes and then looked distinctly and calmly from his left to his right, and Diego swallowed, leaning back in his seat and seeming to reconsider for a moment or two.

“Are they always like this?” the Doctor asked quietly.

“Always,” Luther confirmed. “Except when they’re asleep.”

“Ah,” the Doctor moved her hands to her lap, twisting them together as she surveyed the two men. Klaus seemed to have a muttered conversation out of the side of his mouth, then his shoulders slumped and he let out a groan of protest that she didn’t understand..

“Times like these, I wish Allison was here,” he groused. “It’d be so much easier to rumour you into telling the truth from a safe distance.”

“Who’s Allison?” the Doctor asked, scratching her nose, and Diego yelped in horror, his attention instantly diverted away from Klaus and snapping back to her.

“She’s… how the hell… Luther! She’s right there, how could you let her-”

Luther blinked at her in amazement and then looked back at his brother defensively. “Please. If she was going to try anything, don’t you think she’d have done that first and then scratched her nose? Ma’am, how did you…”

“Spend enough time around Harry Houdini and you pick up a few things,” the Doctor explained with a winning smile. “I was his best student.” 

“Harry Houdini died in 1926,” Diego told her suspiciously. “What-”

“I was never one to be constrained by temporal linearity,” the Doctor said vaguely, then stuck her finger in her mouth before holding it up. “I’m getting… ninety-sixty… three? Three was a good year, except for… well, the thing that happened. Happens? What month is it?”

“You mean JFK?”

“Have I missed it?” the Doctor let out a sigh of relief. “Thank Rassilon for that, there were way too many timelines converging around Dealey Plaza that day; caused me a right old headache for the best part of a decade. Literally. I had to get-”

“It’s November twentieth,” Luther told her, then narrowed his eyes at her. “How do you know about JFK and Dealey Plaza?”

“I’m not local. Consider it a bit of a tourist hotspot for people like me.”

“No kidding,” Klaus sighed, a blissful look on his face as he surveyed her with an expression that could only be described as heart-eyes. “I _love_ a British accent.”

“It’s really not all that British.”

“Well, besides,” Diego said in a threatening tone. “What about not being local would mean that you knew about what happens to JFK? What, does time move faster across the pond? Or did your lot have something to do with it?”

“My lot very much had nothing to do with it,” the Doctor told him with frankness. It was true; JFK had been much beyond the interest of the Time Lords. They hadn’t meddled in human affairs much beyond the initial evolution of homo sapiens, and even that had only been a science project for the younger years at the Academy. “And I do keep telling you, I’m not British.”

“What are you then, Martian?” Diego snorted.

“Closer,” the Doctor said vaguely. “But not close enough,” she turned to Luther. “JFK’s still alive?”

“Yeah, for now,” Luther frowned. “Why?”

“How do _you_ know about him?” the Doctor asked, realising belatedly how strange it was to find three people who were aware of what would happen to the President of the United States several days hence.

“We ended up back here from 2019. There were… navigational issues.”

“Hang on,” Diego’s eyes narrowed threateningly as he cut in before the Doctor could reply. “She mentioned timelines converging. She must work for the-”

“She doesn’t work for the Commission, Diego,” a new, younger voice said impatiently, and the Doctor looked up to find a teenage boy stood in the doorway, dressed – bizarrely – in a school uniform, complete with a plaid pullover and scarlet-edged blazer. He was covered in a layer of grime, and he looked… well, despite his young age, he looked like someone she wouldn’t want to cross. Hostility and mistrust radiated off him like heat, and she flinched as the edges of his consciousness lapped at hers; his thoughts were broiling and poisonously vitriolic. “She’s wearing banana-yellow suspenders, for a start.”

“What’s wrong with my braces?!” the Doctor asked again, but received no response.

“Also, if she worked for the Commission, idiot, where’s her briefcase?” the teenager rolled his eyes. “Where’s her gun? Where’s her… contemptuous air of hatred, murder and general haughtiness?”

“You know, Five,” Luther raised his eyebrows at the newcomer. “That’s one of the things we love most about you. Your contemptuous air of hatred, murder and general haughtiness.”

“Shut up, Luther.”

“He’s got a point,” Diego concurred, although his expression was conflicted. “Much as it pains me to admit.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t insult the boy wonder,” Klaus drawled. “Given the affirmed air of murder-y-ness.”

“That’s not even a word,” the teenager snapped. “And I was trying to-”

“I still think we should torture her for information,” Diego said in a low, dangerous voice, and the Doctor shot him a contemptuous expression. She hadn’t wanted to use Venusiasn Aikido on him, but she would if she had to. “She knows about JFK.”

“She…” the teenager looked at her with sudden suspicion, approaching her with tangible trepidation. “You know about JFK?”

“I do.”

“You know what happens to the President of the United States at twelve-thirty PM on Friday, twenty-second November 1963?”

“He gets shot.”

The teenager eyed her warily, as though trying to make up his mind. “Maybe we should let Diego play with her.”

“We’re not giving him the British lady to mess with!” Klaus whined. “C’mon, he plays with his food… you can’t do that to her, not least because ruining that coat would be a crime.”

“Just because it’s got rainbow edging…” Diego snorted with contempt. “You can’t collect rainbows, Klaus, not least because, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re not in Kansas anymore; the locals don’t much like what you are. Remember how well it went for you with Dave?”

Klaus started towards Diego, and to the Doctor’s astonishment, the teenage boy disappeared out of thin air and reappeared in front of Klaus, scowling up at him with such malice that Klaus came to a halt.

“Infighting is not the answer,” the teenager snarled. “Can’t you two be civil for five minutes? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve got a bigger problem than historic attitudes to Klaus’s proclivities; there’s a woman sat over there who knows about JFK.”

“Well, you said she’s not from the Commission,” Luther began uncertainly, and the Doctor had the sudden distinct impression that this teenager seemed to be the nominal leader of the four of them. “Surely that means-”

“Has anyone actually tried just asking me who I am? Because that would be polite, actually,” the Doctor noted in her most well-mannered voice. “And it might save you all some valuable time in which you could… oh, I don’t know. Play Monopoly. Do a crossword. Retune your telly. Keep arguing with each other. Up to you, really. There’s a whole multitude of fun family activities you could be doing instead of bickering about me.”

“Fine,” the teenager folded his arms and asked her, with somewhat more aggression than was necessary: “Who are you?”

“Why are they calling you ‘five’?” the Doctor countered at once, because her own curiosity was eating away at her.

“I asked first.”

“Fine. I’m the Doctor. Why are they calling you ‘five’?”

“Because it’s his number,” Luther explained, as though it ought to be obvious. “We’ve all got one.”

“Why?” the Doctor frowned, trying to work out why people would need a number. A phone number she could understand; a single-digit numeral, on the other hand, seemed… unusual. They could be a sports team, she supposed, but Klaus didn’t seem the athletic type… or even the outdoors type. “What for?”

“Because that’s what our dad gave us,” Diego said with a shrug, then shot back: “What are you a doctor of?”

“Whatever you fancy. Why did he give you numbers?”

The teenager smirked. “Why dear old Dad did anything was never abundantly clear. We all got a number, and a stupid nickname. Much like ‘Doctor’. Doctor who?”

“Just the Doctor,” the Doctor narrowed her eyes. “What sort of stupid nicknames?”

“The Kraken,” Diego said wearily, speaking the words aloud with utmost reluctance.

“Spaceboy,” Luther muttered, his cheeks flushing.

“The Séance,” Klaus said with a theatrical flourish, dropping into a well-rehearsed curtsy.

“The Boy,” the teenager rolled his eyes, as though frustrated by his brothers’ fancier monikers. “My dear siblings gave themselves ‘proper’ names, ‘normal’ names, or rather our mother did, but I was always just… Five. Shorter. More succinct. Diego here was Number Two, Luther was Number One, and Klaus was Number Four.”

“Who’s Number Three?” the Doctor asked, looking around the room with bright interest. “Are there more of you?”

“There were seven of us,” Luther explained.

“Still are,” Klaus muttered under his breath, but the others ignored him.

“But why should we tell you anything else until you explain who the hell you are and where you appeared from?” Diego said coldly, leaning forward in his seat and pointing the tip of his knife at her. “You can’t just be called ‘the Doctor.’ You just… you can’t.”

“Coming from the Kraken?” the Doctor arched an eyebrow, and he flushed. “Seems hypocritical. Why a Kraken, anyway? At least mine makes sense.”

“Never you mind.”

“Why does yours make sense?” Luther asked interestedly.

“Because I help people. Why Spaceboy?”

“I did some work on the Moon a while back. Pointless work, as it turns out, but… the name was catchy. I’m not so much a boy now though as a man… maybe I should upgrade.”

The Doctor beamed. “Was that the old moon or the new moon?”

“Uh…”

“The Moon’s an egg,” the Doctor reminded them, only to be met with blank stares. “Right. Never mind. Urm. What was the question?”

“Why are you here?” Five demanded to know. “And _how_ are you here? You’re from the future, right? So why are you back here in 1963?”

“Oh, yeah,” the Doctor let out a long breath, her attention snapping back to the present scenario. “Not a Scooby. I was in my ship with my friends, minding my own business, and the next thing I know… I’m here. 1963. Alone.”

“What kind of ship?”

“My time machine.”

“I told you she worked for the Commission!” Diego yelled triumphantly, leaping to his feet and sending the chair he’d been sat on crashing over backwards. “So, you’ve got ships now, huh? Ships, and they’ve hired weird British women in suspenders-”

“Enough about my braces!”

“-to come and finish us off, huh? Thought you’d get us all talking, lull us into a false sense of security, charm us with your British accent-”

“Erm,” the Doctor began, unsure which of his assumptions to counter first. “I’m not sure how to break this to you, but I’ve got no idea what the Commission is, and as I do keep telling you, I’m not British.”

“You must forgive my brother,” Klaus said with a smirk, catching hold of Diego with one hand, lifting his chair upright with the other, and then depositing his brother back upon it. “He’s just had his heart broken by this foxy English chick he met in a mental asylum. He’s turned a little xenophobic about it.”

“Where are you from?” Five asked, his eyes shining. “What organisation?”

“I’m not from an organisation.”

“Affiliation?”

“Urm,” the Doctor blinked hard. “Myself? I suppose? Failing that… Good?”

“Good?”

“As opposed to Evil.”

“Where are you _from_?” Five demanded to know. “You say you’re not British… but you said Martian was closer… so where are you from?”

“Seems a bit personal, but urm, little planet, way out in the constellation of Kasterberous. You wouldn’t have heard of it, it’s called-”

“Gallifrey?” Five said, and the Doctor’s mouth fell open in shock. How could this teenager in 1963 have heard of her planet? Her people? As though reading her mind, he continued: “There was a file on it at the Commission; I thought it was a myth. It was destroyed… how are you…”

“I…” the Doctor blinked hard, still disconcerted by his knowledge. “Long story.”

“Are you telling me that she’s an alien?” Diego asked with horror, his earlier aggression dissolving into fear. “We’ve kidnapped an alien?”

“If you’re an alien…” Klaus began, tilting his head to the side and surveying her with inquisitiveness. “Why are you British?”

“Oh my god, Klaus, you can’t just ask people why they’re British,” Luther shot back, as though this were a practiced response. “Is this what you look like all the time?”

“No, from Monday to Thursday I’ve got six heads and tentacles,” the Doctor deadpanned.

There was a beat of stunned silence.

“…I was kidding,” the Doctor assured them, then quipped: “That’s Fridays.”

There was another beat of silence.

“I don’t have tentacles,” the Doctor rolled her eyes, but waved her arms like tentacles and felt a stab of bitter satisfaction as they flinched. “Sarcasm? Anyone? No? Never mind. Anyone going to tell me about you, or is this just a one-sided interrogation?”

“That’s usually how interrogations work,” Diego noted, flinging himself down on the sofa, having apparently decided that her alienness wasn’t a threat and that his previous chair was uncomfortable. “I don’t want an alien knowing all my business-”

“That’s Diego,” Five said sweetly, as Diego flipped him off. “Also known as the Kraken, also known as Number Two. He can-”

A knife sailed through the air above Five’s head, slicing several hairs from his crown and eliciting a steely glare in response.

“-speak for himself, and also curve things I throw,” Diego finished. “Just for that, Five, you can go last. Luther, why don’t you…”

“Oh, right,” Luther blinked hard. “Luther. I’m not that exciting. I’m just… strong. Really strong.”

“Very handy skill,” the Doctor smiled at him encouragingly, and he seemed to brighten. “Always useful.”

“What’s taking you guys so long?” a woman’s voice interrupted impatiently, and the Doctor looked around to discover two women stood in the doorway. The taller of the two had spoken, and was staring around at them with confusion and frustration. “I thought you said-”

“Allison,” Luther beamed at her, and his entire face seemed to light up. “Meet the Doctor. She’s an alien.”

Allison looked around the room for a second before her gaze alighted on the Doctor, and she frowned, as though disappointed by what she found. “Doesn’t look very alien.”

“What number are you?” the Doctor inquired politely, and Allison’s look turned to one of deep misgiving.

“You can trust her,” Luther said quickly. “We think. She ended up here just like we did.”

“Number Three,” Allison said numbly, looking from Luther to the Doctor uncertainly. “Why?”

“They’re showing off,” Klaus said in a weary tone. “Doctor, this is Allison, the Rumour. She can make people do things just by telling them to. You’ve already met me…” he gave a little bow with the same theatricality he had brought to his curtsy. “The Séance. I can talk to dead people.”

“Which brings us neatly back to-”

“What about you?” the Doctor asked, nodding to the still-silent woman stood beside Allison, whose eyes were darting around the room with tangible fear. The Doctor felt a burgeoning sense of excitement that she appeared to have landed in 1963 alongside a bunch of burgeoning superheroes, but she tried to keep a lid on things; her last encounter with a self-proclaimed ‘hero’ had involved hostile aliens, and she was loathe to jinx anything this time. “What’s your name?”

“Vanya,” the woman said nervously, taking a step closer to Allison. “But I…”

“Vanya here has amnesia,” Five said brightly. “But she used to be Number Seven, the White Violin, who could turn sound into kinetic energy. Which finally brings me back to m-”

“Ben,” Klaus interrupted, earning a scowl from Five. “What about Ben?”

“Ben’s not here.”

“You want to tell him that?” Klaus countered, shooting a dark look slightly to his left.

“Fine,” Five said through gritted teeth. “We had a brother named Ben. The Horror. Number Six. He could summon… things through his body. Creepy monster things. He died. These days he mainly just bugs Klaus. Now, can we get back to me? Number Five. I jump through time and space.”

The Doctor froze, looking at him in awe and feeling a burgeoning sense of envy. “You…”

“Jump through time and space, yeah.”

The Doctor swore in Gallifreyan as she put things together; the strange sensation she’d felt in the TARDIS, Five’s time and space jumps without a capsule, and her arrival here.

“I’m sorry?” Five asked, looking politely confused. “What was that?”

“You. It’s _you_. You’re what pulled me out of time.”

“I think you’ll find-”

“The timelines around this period are a mess; too much residual spatio-temporal energy… it’s you. You’re causing it.”

“I’m… sorry? I think?” Five looked incredulous, looking from the Doctor to his siblings with uncertainty. She could sense that this was a new sensation for him; he was unaccustomed to being on the back foot, and she realised she needed to make her proposal before he could become defensive. “I wasn’t trying to.”

“Can you take me back to Sheffield-”

“Where?”

“In 2020?”

Five affixed her with a bemused look, as though this were the stupidest request he’d ever heard. “If I could do that, we wouldn’t have a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“We aren’t supposed to be here,” Luther chipped in. “Well, we were meant to go back in time, but we overshot. Like I said, we’re from 2019. We tried to go back to our childhoods, but we ended up here instead.”

“Why can’t you just take everyone back?” the Doctor asked Five.

“Because it’s difficult trying to go backwards or forwards that far with so many people. That’s what I was trying to do when we ended up here; we could end up anywhere if I tried to get us back to our time. And that’s not even to mention the geography… I don’t know where Sheffield is, but there’s every chance you could end up in 2045 Siberia. Or worse, 1763 Siberia. Been there, done that. Not highly recommended on Ye Olde TripAdvisor.”

“Why were you even trying to go back in time?” the Doctor asked with frustration, realising that there might only be one option available to her, and it wasn’t an appealing one. “What was so urgent?”

“Preventing the apocalypse,” Klaus hummed. “No biggy, you know? It’s kind of a long story, but if you’re stuck here, then I guess we should get to tellin’…”

“Wait…” the Doctor held up one hand. “What’s the plan for you all to get home? I mean, I assume you’ve got one.”

“Well,” Five looked around at his assembled siblings. “That’s an even longer story, and involves JFK, my esteemed former employer, and a briefcase…”

* * *

As Yaz flicked the kettle on, stifling a yawn behind her hand, she had the oddest sensation that something wasn’t quite right. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she shivered, but as she looked around Graham’s kitchen there was nothing amiss; the plant pots containing – admittedly dead – plants were still in a neat line on the windowsill; the drying rack was still full of last night’s washing up; and the washing machine door had swung open for the hundredth time.

Yaz kicked it shut as the kettle began to bubble merrily, leaning back against the counter and eyeing the calendar on the wall. It had been three weeks, four days, and about six hours since the TARDIS had deposited them back in Graham’s front room and then parked itself stubbornly where it was – ‘right in front of the telly!’ Graham had said forlornly, until Yaz had moved the set – and refused to move. She’d spent the odd night at home, but for the most part she was kipping here on the sofa, as though by doing so she could magic the Doctor back to them.

There was the feeling again; her arms tingled, and she watched the hairs there rise, the mugs starting to rattle on their mug tree. She looked around herself again, and just as she was trying to assure herself that nothing was wrong, there was a loud crackling noise and the Doctor appeared on the kitchen floor, clutching a battered looking briefcase and a rucksack and with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

While this was startling enough, the Doctor was garbed in a tie-dyed turquoise t-shirt, an odd white-and-blue jacket that looked like something the Beatles ought to have worn, what appeared to be a maxi skirt, and there was a luridly-bright flower garland around her neck. The Doctor cracked her eyes open experimentally, looked around herself with tangible apprehension and when her gaze settled on Yaz, she let out a delighted shriek and then launched herself at her friend, flinging her arms around her and squeezing her to the point of physical pain.

“Urm,” Yaz began, unable to even extract her arms and return the hug. There were so many questions racing through her mind, but instead of anything polite or logical she blurted: “Are you wearing eyeliner?”

“Do you like it?” the Doctor asked, pulling away a few inches and beaming at Yaz. The effect was catlike and unsettling, but not unpleasant; Yaz looked the strange outfit up and down, and chanced a guess.

“Sixties?”

“Bingo.”

“How exactly did you end up in the Sixties?”

“It’s a really long story, and there’s superheroes, a cult, and some bad guys who apparently know all about me, so shall we go and wake Ryan and Graham up and tell them?”

“Yes,” Yaz reasoned. “But you might want to either change or hide… I don’t think anyone needs to see that much colour first thing when they wake up. You don’t want to give them the shock of their lives…”


End file.
